


Quattro

by allofuswithwings



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27629564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofuswithwings/pseuds/allofuswithwings
Summary: “But...you can’t have both,” Dom said.“Why not?” Matt asked. “You love Gaia too, and I love Jess. I don’t see why we can’t.”
Relationships: Matt Bellamy/Dom Howard, Matt Bellamy/Dom Howard/Others
Kudos: 6





	Quattro

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from Livejournal/Dreamwidth. Originally published September 2008.

“ _What_ , are you serious?” Dom choked.

He stared incredulously at Matt for a few moments, and Matt nodded, repeating what he had just suggested.

“Have you gone mad...?” Dom said, his voice quieter, more strained this time. “We can’t...I mean, they won’t...”

Exhaling in nervous exasperation, Dom shook his head as Matt levelled his gaze at him, quite serious.

“What? You don’t want to?” Matt asked.

Dom shook his head again, running a hand through his hair.

“No, it’s not that. _God no_ , I want that more than anything...” he trailed off, sighing again. “But...it just won’t work.”

Matt furrowed his brow and leaned back against the park bench he was perched on.

“Why not? I don’t see why it’s so different from what we’re already doing now,” he said. “It’s just, more committed, you know?”

Dom just continued to stare at him, a little taken aback that Matt would think this was a good idea. Things were working perfectly fine as they were right now, there was no reason to change it, jeopardise it. But apparently, Matt thought there was a good reason.

“But it _is_ different, that’s the thing, it will change the way we are,” Dom explained. “Things will get...complicated.”

Matt shook his head and shuffled closer to him, reaching a hand out to run over Dom’s gently.

“They won’t. They don’t have to,” Matt said plainly.

His eyes roved Dom’s face, gaze filled with affection, and he looked around the park furtively before stealing a quick kiss. At this, Dom felt his heart swell and he knew exactly the same expression of fondness was present on his own face. But that was the problem with what Matt was suggesting. He didn’t want to lose this, what they’d had for so many years; for things to get ugly and difficult.

“I don’t know how they’ll take it, though,” Dom said, his fingers intertwining with Matt’s. “I mean, when we first told them, you know how hard that was, and now this...”

Matt’s expression remained relatively unchanged, still serious with that determined look in his eye. Dom didn’t know whether it was even worth discussing this now, because Matt might just do it anyway, even if Dom didn’t agree.

“I’m tired of hiding, feeling ashamed and guilty about this, about how I feel about you,” Matt said. “I shouldn’t feel bad about it, and I won’t pretend anymore.”

He stole another, longer kiss, causing Dom’s heart to race at the thrill of kissing in public, where anyone might spot them and recognise them. He felt torn, because he did want to be able to do this sort of thing all the time, but he knew if they did, the road ahead was going to be very difficult.

“I... love Gaia, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her,” Matt said, after they broke apart. “And I love you, and want to spend the rest of my life with you too.”

Dom felt his stomach churn. Not at Matt’s confession of his love for Gaia, but hearing him tell him he loved him too. He hadn’t heard that in a while, though they’d said it to one another numerous times throughout their lives.

“But...you can’t have both,” Dom said.

“Why not?” Matt asked. “You love Gaia too, and I love Jess. I don’t see why we can’t.”

Dom exhaled another shaky breath. He should have seen this coming, really. They’d been involved in this complicated relationship entanglement for quite a while now, and he supposed it was the next natural step. But he was still a little wary due to the tough slog they’d had to endure so far, in explaining things first to Gaia, and then to Jess.

He loved Matt. Matt loved him. And not just in the best friends kind of way. It had never been simply that, right from when they’d first met, all those years ago. They’d had this instant connection with one another that had deepened and blossomed over time, and was something neither of them ever questioned.

They’d gone through everything together, all the good times, and bad times, and everything in between. They were each other’s first everything’s; kisses, gropes, blow jobs, shags. Even when Matt had’d sex with a girl for the first time, Dom had been right there in the next tent, an amused grin on his face throughout. They shared, loved, hated, fought, shagged and cried with one another for so many years, it was just second nature now.

Dom never felt slighted or jealous of girlfriends, or one night stands, and he knew Matt didn’t either, because he knew the love they felt wasn’t restricted or bound in any way. Matt could love him, and Matt could love Gaia, and both loves were valid and profound. Dom never understood the limits and categories other people put on love, because he’d felt that close intensity with a number of people, even at the same time, like he did with Jess and Matt.

But this point of view had been difficult to explain at first, because the ‘one and only’ theory was so deeply entrenched in most societies. Matt had told Gaia his feelings and physical engagements in regards to Dom, after the first few weeks of getting to know her. He believed it wasn’t fair to begin developing feelings between the two of them when she didn’t know the full extent of what she was getting into. And of course, she was angry and shocked at first, demanding that he break it off with Dom or she wasn’t going to see him anymore. But there wasn’t anything to break off, because the two of them just _were_ , and there was no changing it.

Eventually, they’d come to an agreement, where as long as she didn’t have to see or hear about it, Matt could continue sleeping with Dom on occasion, and Gaia would be alright about it. Because of this, for a while it had been strained, Matt and Gaia growing closer, and Gaia always wary and standoffish with Dom. But both Matt and Dom were determined to make it work, and Gaia began to relax and no longer see Dom as a threat to her relationship with Matt.

In fact, Dom had grown a great affection for her, and the two of them had become quite close, much to Matt’s delight. Gaia now greeted them both with equally ardent kisses, though publicly she played the part of doting girlfriend for Matt, for obvious image’s sake. And that was the problem now, because Matt wanted to shed that facade and show them all for what they were.

“You know why we can’t...” Dom sighed. “And I don’t know if Jess and Gaia will really want to...”

“Well I think they will, if we do this properly,” Matt said. “I want all of us to be together, _living_ together like we should be. We all love each other, and we should be allowed to live however we fucking want.”

Matt was getting slightly irritated now, not because of Dom, but because of the close-minded, restrictive world they had to live in. Dom didn’t blame him. The sole reason they’d not all confessed their deep love for each other, and not moved in together, was simply because they felt like they weren’t supposed to. You were only supposed to love and desire one person at a time, and anything else was just lust or deviancy. So they were led to believe, anyway, but Dom had never bought it.

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure of the way Jess and Gaia felt, but he had a fair inkling they wanted something more than the current arrangement of the four of them. Most of the time it was just Jess and himself, and Gaia and Matt, as separate couples, with Dom and Matt sleeping together every now and then when they were on the road. But on a few occasions he’d caught Jess and Gaia sharing a drunken kiss, and seen the way Jess would slide a loving arm around Matt’s waist when in his company.

“I know, I know, it’s ridiculous,” Dom admitted. “Maybe if we were just the next person on the street it wouldn’t be so bad, but we’re in a band, we’re famous...”

And it was then that Dom knew why he was hesitant. It wasn’t because he was afraid Gaia and Jess would say no. He was afraid they would say _yes_.

And that would mean they’d have to go through with it, and the shit would really hit the fan. They’d be together under one roof, as one family, and that was never easy to begin with. He knew he could live with Matt, and with Jess, but the dynamics would be so different when it was the four of them all together. He wasn’t exactly sure how that would go, and he was terrified things would just fall apart.

But it was more than that, he knew. Because they would work hard at it, all of them, and things would probably turn out fine between them. But what about everyone else?

“You’re worried what everyone else will think?” Matt asked. “Who the fuck cares what they think, it’s our lives.”

“I know, it’s not the fans or anything, or the public at all really,” Dom said. “It’s more friends and family...and Chris...”

Matt’s expression clouded, and he furrowed his brow. Clearly he hadn’t really thought about that at length. Which was slightly surprising, because it would definitely be a trouble spot.

“Him and his bloody well-rounded, average, picket-fenced normal family,” Matt complained. “He needs expand his horizons and realise not everyone wants the doting housewife and 2.5 kids. Though with him, it’s more like 205 kids.”

Dom grinned wryly at this, knowing that Matt didn’t really mean all this as harshly as it sounded. They were not sick of Chris, Kelly and their million and one children, despite how much Matt whined about it; they cared for them all so much that Matt and Dom didn’t want Chris upset at them for the life they chose.

Chris was already unhappy with it as it was, let alone if they made it a permanent, homely kind of lifestyle. That kind of arrangement didn’t fit into Chris’s traditional values of husband, wife, marriage and children. Okay, so maybe he didn’t necessarily see that set-up for the Matt and Dom, and he wasn’t particularly averse to same-sex couples, but his ideas of love and commitment were pretty much straight down the line.

You were in love with one person, and that was it, if you decided you wanted to settle down. There were no others on the side, others you loved just as deeply, as was the case with Matt and Dom. Not that Chris actually knew that particular detail, that they loved each other, and didn’t just sleep together. Chris thought it was simply about the sex, they wanted some kink, and shagged each other only for a bit of fun. Dom knew Chris would be horrified to know it ran much deeper than that, and that they were contemplating settling down together, all four of them.

“Chris is going to lose his shit if we do this, you know that right?” Dom asked. “It’s going to take a bloody long time and a lot of work to really bring him around, and not hate all four of us.”

Matt grunted, leaning his head to one side to rest on Dom’s shoulder. Then he sighed and closed his eyes, seemingly in defeat.

“I never said it was going to be easy, but I really want to do this,” Matt said finally. “I’m sick of pretending that I’m not crazy about you.”

He opened his eyes to look up at Dom, piercingly blue and honest. Dom found his breath stolen from him and his belly burn with want, at the way Matt gazed at him so fiercely. There was something so raw and visceral about Matt’s love for him, and he knew he too was tired of trying to deny it.

Ignoring the lack of privacy and high risk of being noticed, Dom turned to capture Matt in a long kiss, his hands cupped around his face as he did so. He felt Matt’s hand slide around his waist, hand coming to rest in the small of his back, and the other hand lifting up to slip around Dom’s neck. They kissed passionately and nuzzled one another for a few drawn out minutes before breaking apart, breathless and eyes shining.

“We’re really going to do this, then?” Dom asked, giddy with excitement and nervousness.

Matt returned his shaky smile, and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes darted away for a moment, aware they were being watched by a few nosey gawkers in the park some distance from them. Dom wasn’t sure if they were being stared at simply because they were both men, or because someone actually recognised them. Either way, he decided he no longer cared.

“We damn well are, and fuck everyone else that doesn’t like it,” Matt said, the words having more conviction than the actual tone of his voice.

Still, he flashed a toothy, contented grin and slipped his hand into Dom’s, starting on a slow walk out of the park. Dom entwined his fingers between Matt’s and squeezed his hand as they walked, his stomach filled with butterflies and heart ablaze with freed passion. He had no idea what was coming next, but he realised as long as he had Matt there with him, it didn’t really matter all that much.


End file.
